Reversible strip winding device



May 1, 1934. M. L. WEISS REVERSIBLE STRIP WINDING DEVICE Filed Dec. 28, 1931 Fatenteel May I, 1934 s'r rs iii?" ears Max L. Weiss, Brooklyn, N.- Y.,- assignor of one-- half to Benjamin Rabinowitz, Brooklyn, N. Y.

Application December 28, 1931, Serial No. 583,545;

8 Claims.

The object of my invention is to provide a device including a pair or" reels together with a strip of paper or other pliable material which can be reeled back and forth from one spool or 5 reel to the other, first in one direction and then in another; and to provide a very simple and inexpensive device which will automatically shift the connection of the operating mechanism from one reel to the other whenever the operating device is reversed in direction.

One use of the invention is in connection with a desk calendar having a long strip of paper or other pliable material on which the days of the week and days of the month may be printed in sequence lengthwise of the strip. By means of a suitable knob turned by hand, the long strip containing the dates may be moved across a suitable window or opening in the casing of the device and brought to a stop with the current date showing through the opening in the window .of the casing. Each day the strip may be advanced by turning the knob to bring the date ,of the current day in position registering with the window or opening.

With the present device it is possible not only to advance the strip but to turn it back in case it has been advanced beyond the current date. In order to turn theistrip bacicwardly it is only necessary to turnthe knob in a reverse direction no and the driving device which was previously engaging the forward reel is thrown into mesh with the opposite reel.

Thus, the drive is transferred from one reel to the other so that the reel which is receiving the strip will be the one propelled in whichever direction the strip is to be moved.

The parts for causing the drive to be shifted fromlon e reel to another is very simple and inexpensive to manufacture, and this permits the ,40 reverse drive to. be used not only on a calendar but on various other devices where an inexpensive reverse drive is desirable. Other features and advantages will be set forth in the following detailed description of my invention.

In the drawing forming part of this application,

Figure 1 is a plan view of a calendar containing my invention,

Figure 2 is an end view thereof,

Figure 3 is a sectional View taken on the line 3-3 of Figure 1,

Figure 4 is a sectiontal view taken on the line 4-4 of Figure 5,

Figure 5 is a sectional view taken on the line 55 5-5 of Figure 4,

Figure 6 is a sectional view taken on the line 6-6 of Figure 4,

Figure 7 is a sectional view taken on the line 7-7 of Figure 6, and

Figure 8 is an assembly view of parts of the drive.

As stated above, I have shown my invention applied to a calendar printed on a long strip of paper or other flexible material with a pair of reels or spools on which the strip is wound. 6.5

I will describe the invention as embodied in 10h a device without, however, intending to limit the same to such an embodiment, but to include all structures in which my improved reversible drive can be employed. In the drawing I have shown a casing for enclosing the various parts and it consists of an inclined top wall 1, a rear end wall 2 and a front wall 3 together with parallel side walls 4, 5 all of which, together, form an enclosing shell having a compartment 6 to receive and hold the movable parts of the device. The shell may be closed by means of a sliding cover 7 which forms the bottom wall of the shell.

The working parts of the device are mounted upon a frame which includes parallel side plates 30 8, 9 connected together by the cross plate 10 over which latter the strip of paper or other material 34 is adapted to slide; and to keep the strip in line with the reels raised abutments 11 are formed by bending the metal where the side walls 35 8, 9 and cross plate 10 meet. This provides two shoulders extending above the plane of the connecting plate 10 to prevent the strip 34 from moving sidewise.

There is journaled in the side plates 8, 9 adjacent one end of the frame, a reel comprising a hub 11 which has on one end of it the flange 13 and on the other end a gear 14 which serves as a flange corresponding with the flange 13 and also serves as a gear forming part of the drive. Adjacent the other end of the frame there is another reel consisting of the hub 15 which also has an end flange 16 corresponding with the flange 13 of the first reel; and it also has a gear 17 on its opposite end corresponding with and in alignment with the gear l i of the first reel; and this gear 1'7 also serves as a flange for the second reel. I have shown the metal which forms the cross plate 10 bent back under the plate at each end, as shown at 18.

The two gears 14, 17 are preferably arranged in the same plane so that a pinion disposed between them can be shifted from one gear to the other. There is a shaft 19 extending through the two side plates of the frame, one end having a simple 110 bearing in one of the side plates, and the other being provided with a disk 20, having an eccentric periphery, that is, eccentric in relation to the shaft 19. This eccentric disk is disposed on the shaft 19 in position so that the eccentric surface engages in a circular aperture 21 in one of the side plates, as shown in Figure 7. The aperture 22 in the plate 9 is slightly elongated to permit the shaft 19 to be tilted in this aperture as herein after described.

There is a pinion 23 mounted on and fixed to the shaft 19 and it lies between the two gears 14, 17 and is adapted to be brought into mesh with either of these gears in the manner hereinafter described. The eccentric member 20 is shown as fixed to or made integral with an arm 24 which projects laterally from the shaft 19 and is adapted to engage with either one of the stop members 25, 26 formed by bending the edge portions of one of the side plates 8 laterally and into the path of this arm 24.

I have shown a washer 27 fitting over the shaft 19 and seating against the outer surface of the arm 24; and next to this washer and pressing against it is a compression spring 28; and at the opposite end of the compression spring there is a second washer 29, the two washers and the spring surrounding the shaft 19. There is a knob 30 having a hub 31 which fits over the end of the shaft 19 which latter projects through the right hand'wall of the casing as viewed in Figure 4, the knob being fixed on the shaft when the parts are assembled by means of a set screw 32.

The knob, therefore, retains the eccentric member 20 and the arm 24 in assembled position on the shaft 19 against the flange 33 of the pinion 23 and it also retains the compression spring and washers in the assembled position shown in Figures 4 and 7 The strip of material 34 which may be paper, fabric or any other pliable material, is wound spirally on the hub 11 of one reel and it extends over the plate 10 between the projections 11- and is partly wound upon the hub 15 of the second reel. The casing is provided with a window or opening 35 registering with the plate 10 so that the portion of the strip which lies against this plate and which is provided'with suitable printed matter 36, on its outer surface, is visible through the window for the purpose of reading the date on the strip as shown in Figure 1.

Operation When the device is set up for use, the greater portion of the strip will be wound on the hub 11 of the first reel and the strip will be threaded over the plate 19 and the opposite end attached tothe hub 15 of the second reel; and the first date may be exposed through the window 35. Each day the knob 30 may be turned right handed in Figure 1 to advance the strip from the first to the second reel a sufficient distance to bring a new date in register with the window. If the strip should be turned too far it is only necessary to reverse the knob by turning it in the opposite direction, whereupon the strip 34 will be shifted from the second reel towards the first one to retract the strip and bring the desired date in register with the'window.

When theknob 30 is turned right handed, as described above, if the pinion 23 is not in register with the gear 17 the turning of the knob and with it the shaft 19 will also turn the eccentric member 20 and the latter, being confined within the circular aperture 21 of the side plate 8'of'the frame, will cause the end of the shaft 19 which carries the pinion to rotate in a concentric path until the teeth of the pinion move into mesh with the teeth of the gear 17 and the eccentric rotation of this end of the shaft will terminate when the teeth of the pinion are in full mesh with the teeth of the gear 17 because the arm 24 will at that time come into contact with the stop member 26 and this will arrest further rotation of the eccentric disk 20.

This occurs as just stated, at the time the pinion is in full mesh with the gear 17. If the knob is revolved further in the right hand direction the shaft 19 will be revolved further aswell as the pinion, and this will act on the gear 1'7 to revolve the same in a clockwise direction as viewed in Figure 6. The eccentric 20, however, will not continue to revolve with the shaft 19 after the arm 24, which is fixed to the eccentric, strikes the stop 26. As the gear 17 is part of the second reel, the reel as a whole will revolve and draw the strip 34 from the first reel and over the plate 10, the strip winding about the hub 15 of the second reel. The eccentric disk '20 will stop revolving, therefore, when the arm 24 strikes the stop member 26 but the shaft and the pinion may continue to revolve in the same direction as long as the strip is to be propelled from the first reel toward the second reel, or from left to right in Figure 6.

If it is found that the strip has been advanced too far-and it is desired to turn it back from the second toward the first reel, it is only necessary to reverse the direction of operation of the knob 30 and to turn it counterclockwise.

At the beginning of this reverse motion of the knob, the shaft 19 and the pinion 23 will revolve and the eccentric disk 20, together with the arm 24, will be revolved by reason of the friction created by the compression spring 28.

As the eccentric revolves counterclockwise, as viewed in Figure 5, the end of the shaft which carries the pinion 23 will move in an eccentric path and disengage the piston from the gear 1'7 and afterwards move it into mesh with the gear 14. This shifting of the end of the shaft 19 will continue until the arm 24 engages against the stop member 25 which will arrest the turning of the eccentric member 20 at a time when the pinion is in full mesh with the gear 14 and is disengaged from the gear 17. If the knob is moved further in the counterclockwise direction, the pinion will act on the gear 14 to revolve the latter and as this gear is part of the first reel the latter will be driven counterclockwise in Figure 6 and the strip will be withdrawn by this reel from the second reel and across the plate 10.

From the above it will be apparent that the knob may be turned in either direction and that the driving conection between the pinion and the gears 14, 17 will be shifted from one to the other automatically, according to the direction in which the knob is turned. Thus, the drive is transferred from one reel to the other, according to the direction in which the strip is to be shifted. As the receiving reel at any time is the one which is driven, the strip is always drawn by the receiving reel and it makes no material difference in the operation of the device whether one reel has a larger body of strip wound on it than the other. It will also be apparent that the device for shifting the pinion from one gear to the other is very inexpensive, easily assembled, and positive in its action.

Having described my invention, what I claim is:

1. In a device of the character described, a

plurality of reels, a strip adapted to be wound back and forth from one reel to the other, and means for driving said reels, including a gear associated with each reel, a pinion adapted to mesh with either of said gears, and eccentric means adapted to move said pinion into mesh with either of said gears, means by which said pinion may be revolved in either direction, said eccentric means being shifted in either direction by said pim'on revolving means.

2. In a device of the character described, a frame, a plurality of reels, a strip adapted to be wound back and forth from one reel to the other, and means for driving said reels, including a gear associated with each reel, a pinion adapted to mesh with either of said gears and an eccentric mounted in said frame and adapted to turn with said pinion, means for limiting the turning movement of said eccentric, said eccentric being adapted to move said pinion into mesh with either of said gears, according to the direction of rotation of the pinion.

3. In a device of the character described, a frame, a plurality of reels, a strip adapted to be wound back and forth from one reel to the other, and means for driving said reels, including a gear associated with each reel, a pinion adapted to mesh with either of said gears, an eccentric member mounted in said frame, means for pressing said pinion and eccentric member into frictional engagement with each other whereby the eccentric member will revolve with said pinion, and means for limiting the revolving motion of the eccentric member, said eccentric being adapted to move said pinion into mesh with either of said gears, according to the direction of rotation of said pinion.

4. In a device of the character described, a frame, a plurality of reels revolvably mounted in said frame, a strip adapted to be wound back and forth from one reel to the other and means for driving said reels including a gear associated with each reel, a shaft mounted in said frame whereby at least one end of the shaft may be shifted, a pinion mounted on said shaft, an eccentric member on said shaft co-operating with said frame and adapted to cause said pinion to be moved into mesh with either of said gears according to the direction of rotation of said pinion and means for revolving said shaft in either direction.

5. In a device of the character described, a frame, a plurality of reels revolvably mounted in said frame, a strip adapted to be wound back and forth from one reel to the other, a gear associated with each reel, a shaft revolvably mounted in said frame, a pinion mounted on and revolvable with said shaft, said frame having a circular aperture, a member engaging and revolvable in said aperture, said shaft extending through said latter member in eccentric relation to said aperture whereby when said member is revolved in the frame aperture, the shaft will be rotated in an eccentric path to move said pinion into mesh with either of said gears according to the direction of rotation of said pinion.

6. In a device of the character described, a frame, a plurality of reels, a strip adapted to be wound back and forth from one reel to the other, a gear associated with each of said reels, said frame having a circular aperture, a member rotatable in said aperture, a shaft extending through said member at a point eccentric to the axis of said member, a pinion mounted on and revolvable with said shaft, spring means for pressing said pinion and said eccentric member into frictional engagement whereby the pinion will revolve said eccentric member, means for limiting the revolving motion of said eccentric member whereby it will be partially revolved by frictional engagement with said pinion, said eccentric member being adapted to shift said pinion into mesh with either of said gears, according to the direction of rotation of said pinion.

7. In a device of the character described, a frame, a plurality of reels revolvably mounted in the frame, a strip adapted to be Wound back and forth from one reel to the other, a gear associated with each of said reels, said frame having a circular aperture, an eccentric member revolvable in said frame aperture, a shaft extending through said eccentric member in eccentric relation to the axis of said member, an arm movable with said eccentric member, stop members on said frame for engaging said arm to limit the cocentric member to a partial revolution in either direction, a pinion mounted on said shaft, said eccentric member being adapted to be resistibly revolved with said pinion to shift said shaft to move the pinion into mesh with either of said gears, according to the direction of revolution of the pinion.

8. In a device of the character described, a frame, a plurality of reels revolvably mounted in said frame in parallel relation, a strip adapted to be wound back and forth from one reel to the other, a gear associated with each of said reels,

a frame having a circular aperture, an eccentric member revolvable in said aperture, an arm moving with said eccentric member, stops on said frame for limiting the revolution of said arm and said eccentric member, a shaft extending through said eccentric member with its axis eccentrically disposed in relation to the aperture in which said eccentric member revolves, a pinion mounted on and revolvable with said shaft, an operating knob on said shaft, a spring on said shaft for pressing said pinion and said eccentric member into frictional engagement, whereby the eccentric member will be resistibly revolved with the pinion, said eccentric member being adapted to shift the pinion into mesh with either of said gears, according to the direction of revolution of said shaft.

MAX L. WEISS. 

